Increasingly, outdoor spaces are becoming our haven - somewhere to breathe again, heighten our senses and escape the onslaught of noise, clutter and technology. This book offers ideas and inspiration for making the most of any outdoor space we might have - whether it is a garden, a patio, balcony, or even just a window box - and for bringing touches of nature indoors for mindful enjoyment. Bestselling author Jane Cumberbatch's 'Pure Style' philosophy is all about making the most of what's around you and finding beauty in the simple and everyday as an achievable alternative to the stressful demands of consumer society. In this book, which was put together over the course of 2020, she draws on the inspiration of her own home and garden to supply ideas for life-affirming colour, scent and texture, and to show how even the most unpromising outdoor space can be a source of sensuous renewal. Viewing the garden as an extension of the home, and with ideas for all seasons, this beautiful and inspiring book is illustrated with glorious photographs and enchanting paintings by the author herself. A book for dipping into or enjoying as one long read, or both.

After decades of fantasizing and saving, of working multiple jobs and embracing frugality in the midst of Manhattan, Martha Leb Molnar and her husband had found their farm. Determined to turn an overgrown and unproductive Vermont apple orchard into a thriving and beautiful landscape, they decided to restore this patch of land to a pristine meadow and build a safe haven for their family and nearby wildlife.Once they cleared the gnarled and dying trees away, Molnar was forced to wage war on the invasive species that have sprung up around the property. Propelled by the heated debates surrounding non-native species and her own complicated family history and migration, she was driven to research the Vermont landscape, turning to scientific literature, experts in botany and environmental science, and locals who have long tended the land in search of answers. At turns funny, thoughtful, and conversational, Playing God in the Meadow follows this big city transplant as she learned to make peace with rural life and an evolving landscape that she cannot entirely control.

Cooking Without Milk is a straightforward, commonsense cookbook for the 50 million people in America who have milk or lactose intolerances or allergies. Unlike most of the current milk-free cookbooks that are free of lactose but not necessarily of milk, Cooking Without Milk is completely milk-free, with more than 550 recipes and variations of the foods people eat regularly with ingredients found in most grocery stores today.

Many current milk-free cookbooks assume that lactose is the only problem ingredient in milk, require ingredients that are hard to find, and presume that cooks are mainly interested in making gourmet, time-consuming dishes. Cooking Without Milk, however, assumes that most people who cook milk-free don't want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. Cooking is not their only pastime.

Cooking Without Milk includes a wide range of recipes -- main dishes, vegetables, soups, sandwiches, egg dishes, breads, deserts, beverages, and sauces, gravies, and glazes. Also included are guides to the role of milk and milk products in diet, high-lactose foods to avoid, a guide to calcium and calcium-rich foods, and other useful information for those who cannot consume milk.

The author also suggests ways in which to determine one's level of milk intolerance, how to live comfortably while avoiding milk, eating in restaurants, accepting invitations that involve meals, milk products in medications, knowing how to find hidden milk in the ingredients of everyday foods, what to be careful about when buying from an in-store deli, and a list of Web sites for those who want to research milk intolerance for themselves.

This book is a comprehensive, beautifully illustrated colour guide to the plants which farmers, growers and gardeners can use to improve soil structure and restore fertility without the use and expense of agrichemicals. Information based on the latest research is given on how to use soil conditioning plants to avoid soil degradation, restore soil quality and help clean polluted land. There are 11 chapters: 1 to 6 cover soil health, nitrogen fixation, green manures and herbal leys, bacteria and other microorganisms, phytoremediators and soil mycorrhiza (plant-fungal symbiosis). Chapter 7 has plant illustrations, with climate range and soil types, along with their soil conditioning properties and each plant is presented with a comprehensive description opposite a detailed illustration, in full colour. Chapters 8 to 10 examine soil stabilisers, weeds and invasive plants, and hedges and trees and the final chapter, contains 5 case studies with the most recent data, followed by an appendix and glossary. The book allows the reader to identify the plants they need quickly and find the information necessary to begin implementation of soil regeneration.

In thousands of years of tilling the soil, we have created a great variety of garden tools to dig, cut scrub, harrow fields, and trim borders. What makes the tools unique, and collectible, is the way function has dictated form, resulting in not only ingenious shapes, but artistic ones. In the 19th and early 20th centuries garden tool catalogs listed hundreds of task-specific tools including dibbers, mattocks, potato hoes, onion hoes, daisy grubbers, claws, weeders, forcers, straighteners, garden row markers, garden reels, rakes, watering cans, water tanks, lawn mowers, lawn rollers, weed whackers, and many many more. This book looks back at two hundred years of garden history, and attempts to identify the tools and accessories that gardeners used, and as much as possible identify their specific functions. With over 750 color photographs, concise captions, and a guide to prices in today's antique marketplace, this is a useful as well as beautiful exploration of garden implements.

Death and Garden Narratives in Literature, Art and Film: Song of Death in Paradise explores the combination of two motifs, death and gardens, to show how the two subjects are intertwined and used in various media and cultural contexts. Using cultural, literary, film, and art history theories, the contributors analyze various death and garden sceneries in literary works by Arthur Machen, Agatha Christie, J.K. Rowling, as well as in superhero comics, films, and cultural and art contexts such as Ian Hamilton Finley's "Little Sparta," the poetic verses from the Karoo Desert National Botanical Garden in South Africa, and the Australian wilderness.

This revised and updated edition of the classic Cultivators Handbook of Marijuana had complete information on growing marijuana indoors and out. Full of examples, fantastic illustrations and horticultural knowledge. Drake is a leading authority on marijuana cultivation. His book Cultivators Handbook of Marijuana includes information on the marijuana plant, marijuana and land, working with young plants, marijuana and light, harvesting and curing, making a good plant better, cultivation of psychoactive tobacco, and cultivation awareness.

Companion planting has a long history of use by gardeners, but the explanation of why it works has been filled with folklore and conjecture. Plant Partners delivers a research-based rationale for this ever-popular growing technique, offering gardeners dozens of ways they can use scientifically tested plant partnerships to benefit the garden as a whole. Through an enhanced understanding of how plants interact with and influence each other, this guide suggests specific plant combinations that growers can use to improve soil health and weed control, decrease pest damage, and increase biodiversity, resulting in real and measurable impacts in the garden.

Gardens at the Frontier addresses broad issues of interest to architectural historians, environmental historians, garden writers, geographers, and other scholars. It uses different disciplinary perspectives to explore garden history's thematic, geographical, and methodological frontiers through a focus on gardens as sites of cultural contact. The contributors address the extent to which gardens inhibit or further cultural contact; the cultural translation of garden concepts, practices and plants from one place to another; the role of non-written sources in cultural transfer; and which disciplines study gardens and designed landscapes, and how and why their approaches vary. Chapters cover a range of designed landscapes and locations, periods and approaches: medieval Japanese roji (tea gardens); a seventeenth-century garden of southern China; post-war Australian 'natural gardens'; iconic twentieth-century American modernist gardens; 'international' willow-pattern design; geology and designed landscapes; gnomes; and landscape authorship of a public garden. Each chapter examines transfers of cultural ideas and their physical denouement. This book was originally published as a special issue of Studies in the History of Gardens & Designed Landscapes.

In this book the author describes the way her garden evolved and how, without meaning to do so, she let it take over her life. She suggests moving away from planning, regimentation and gardening with the mentality of a stamp-collector. Frequently funny and always stimulating, she writes of the alchemy of gardens, of the 19th-century plant-collectors and plant illustrators and of the gardening philosophers, all fertilizing great thoughts along with their hollyhocks. She won the 1988 Sinclair Consumer Press Garden Writer of the Year Award.

'Poignant ... A meditation on life, love and the importance of nature' IRISH TIMES Thirty-four years ago, when they were in their twenties, Niall Williams and Christine Breen made the impulsive decision to leave their lives in New York City and move to Christine's ancestral home in the town of Kiltumper in rural Ireland. In the decades that followed, the pair dedicated themselves to writing, gardening and living a life that followed the rhythms of the earth. In 2019, with Christine in the final stages of recovery from cancer and the land itself threatened by the arrival of turbines just one farm over, Niall and Christine decided to document a year of living in their garden and in their small corner of a rapidly changing world. Proceeding month by month through the year, this is the story of a garden in all its many splendours, and a couple who have made their life observing its wonders.

Fill Your Garden with Color! Everyone wants color in their garden, but each gardener's preferred palette is unique. How do you choose the right one for your garden, and how do you find the plants that will help you fulfill your vision? The Gardener's Palette, published in partnership with the Royal Horticultural Society, shares an entirely new way for home gardeners to confidently incorporate color at home. Award-winning garden designer Jo Thompson offers 100 evocative and fresh palettes, pairs them with beautiful images of professionally designed gardens, and breaks them down with charts showing the exact plants used. Thompson also provides full growing specifications for every plant to allow home gardeners to successfully re-create these stunning gardens.

Gardeners from Key West to Lake Okeechobee and on up the coasts know that gardening advice for the rest of the country just doesn't apply here. South Florida is unique, and The Art of South Florida Gardening is uniquely intended for South Florida gardeners, who have depended on the solid advice in this book since the first edition came out more than a decade ago. Now it has been updated with more helpful facts, tips, and advice for the conservation-conscious gardener of the 21st century, while maintaining the practical, easygoing attitude South Florida gardeners have found so comforting over the years. This book still makes gardening in South Florida inviting and fun, whether you are an old hand or have just moved hereand even if you have never before considered getting your hands dirty. Harold's warm, wise voice is always encouraging and enthusiastic, and Coralee's lively engaging prose will have you reading as much for pleasure as for its valuable information.

Hydrangeas are booming in popularity as home gardeners appreciate their long season of bloom, ease of maintenance, and dazzling variety of flower colors and forms. This book reveals the best species for landscaping uses and the best varieties for both fresh and dried flower arrangements. Unique in their ability to change flower color depending on soil composition, hydrangeas are the chameleons of the plant world. Color mysteries are cleared up along with recommendations for achieving the best blues, pinks, purples, and whites in the home garden. With more than 250 vivid color photos, the book offers clear and expert advice on planting, pruning, and providing basic care. Learn the best time to cut hydrangeas for fresh bouquets and when and how to harvest them for dried flowers. With single-topic chapters and answers to frequently asked questions, this is a handy and easily accessible guide for both beginning and experienced gardeners.

Bring a Sensory Garden to life in a structured therapeutic horticulture program! Intergenerational gardening programs bring the generations together. This book presents a tested, hands-on, easy-to-use activity plan that benefits the development of relationships between adults over 70 and school-age children. It shows how to limit frustration for both groups, how to plan activities that are functional and non-contrived, and how to assure that the interaction between elders and children is rewarding and pleasant for both. The activities rely on inexpensive, readily available tools and resources available throughout the growing season. While other books have discussed designing a Sensory Garden for people with disabilities, Generations Gardening Together applies the Sensory Garden design to a specific population, with a focus on the human senses that are stimulated by the garden. This unique sourcebook shows you, step-by-step, how a Sensory Garden can come alive in a structured therapeutic horticulture program. Generations Gardening Together shows how to create a Sensory Garden that will stimulate young and old gardeners alike. It outlines a six-week program curriculum that has been used and developed over ten years to use gardening as a program to bring generations together. You'll learn therapeutic techniques that benefit elders by promoting self-esteem, creating feelings of pride, competence, and satisfactionboth from creating a garden and through passing on their knowledge and wisdom to the younger generation, inspiring them to use both their long-term and short-term memory skills, increasing physical stimulation, and providing the comfort of familiar plants and their aromas, which can trigger memories of people, places, and vocations. The activities in the book also benefit children through the establishment of a safe environment where people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities can come togetheran ideal social situation in which youth can seek the wisdom of elders. Children learn important lessons about accountability, nurturing, and responsibility, for working in a garden teaches youth about life, death, hope, patience, and beauty. Each activity session described in Generations Gardening Together includes the following information: titledescribes the content of the program general statement of purposeidentifies the intent of the program goal(s)outlines the expected outcome(s) of the activity program proceduresprovides a detailed description of each step and the order of the program's activities evaluationincludes what and how therapeutic program goals are to be measured and recorded materials and equipmentidentifies all the necessary equipment and supplies needed to facilitate the program activity This important resource shows how to provide appropriate (separate) orientation to seniors and children, what to emphasize and what to avoid in creating a program in your community, how to create garden themes that reflect the interests of the participants (ethnic foods, bird and butterfly gardens, planting to attract wildlife, etc.), how to decide what activities are appropriate for the developmental level of the participants, and much more. Generations Gardening Together is an essential resource for therapeutic recreation specialists, occupational therapists, therapeutic horticulture professionals, activity coordinators, master gardeners, and anyone working in an environment where elders and children come together.

Design the garden of your dreams with the expertise of award-winning garden designer Pollyanna Wilkinson.

How to Design A Garden shows you how to untap your garden’s potential and customise the design to suit you and your space: whether that be an extension of your living space for parties and al fresco dining or a calming oasis to relax in.

Equipped with all you need to know about light, focal points, hardscaping, and planting, you’ll have the skills to create a moodboard, design layout, choose paving, furniture, and plant combinations. Polly expertly guides you to understand how the elements in your garden will work together as one – and she is not shy to share her opinions on certain design dos and don'ts!

Once you’ve designed your garden, month-by-month growing guides help you to nurture it, so you can enjoy your dream space for years to come.

Let writer and gardener Jeff Hutton show you and your kids how to grow your own food and your favorite flowers, attract butterflies, create crafts, and more. What could be more fun and rewarding for a family than planting and raising a garden together. Here is everything you need to know to make your next garden a success for both you and your children: Decorating Your Own Garden Toolbox Simple Window Gardens Mini Herb Garden Container Tomato Garden Popcorn Garden Salsa Garden Planting a Sunflower Maze Creating a Butterfly Garden And much more! Additionally, there are over a dozen fun recipes and instructions for making stepping stones, decorating egg carton planters, planting a sunflower maze, and much more. Parents and children are sure to have a blast in the garden all year round!

'Wonderfully intense and honest - a poignant manual of how to grow hope against the odds.' Chris Packham, TV presenter and author of Fingers in the Sparkle Jar Finding herself in a new home in Brighton, Kate Bradbury sets about transforming her decked, barren backyard into a beautiful wildlife garden. She documents the unbuttoning of the earth and the rebirth of the garden, the rewilding of a tiny urban space. On her own she unscrews, saws and hammers the decking away, she clears the builders' rubble and rubbish beneath it, and she digs and enriches the soil, gradually planting it up with plants she knows will attract wildlife. She erects bird boxes and bee hotels, hangs feeders and grows nectar- and pollen-rich plants, and slowly brings life back to the garden. But while she's doing this Kate's neighbours continue to pave and deck their gardens locking them away, the wildlife she tries to save is further threatened, and she feels she's fighting an uphill battle. Is there any point in gardening for wildlife when everyone else is drowning the land in poison and cement? Sadly, events take Kate away from her garden, and she finds herself back home in Birmingham where she grew up, travelling the roads she used to race down on her bike in the eighties, thinking of the gardens and wildlife she loved, witnessing more land lost beneath paving stones. If the dead could return, what would they say about the land we have taken, the ancient routes we have carved up, the wildlife we have lost?

This delightful collection of wisdom, insight and humor, from Diane Ackerman to Emile Zola, captures the essence of the world's most popular hobby. Here are over four hundred quotations -- not only one-line zingers but stanzas of verse and full paragraphs of narrative -- on the endless fascination of gardening. The great gardening writers of past and present are amply represented, but these varied selections also range the entirety of recorded literature, from the Bible and the tenth-century Japanese diarist Sei Shonagon through Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens, Walt Whitman, and even Prince Charles.

For anyone who counts their hours in the soil as their most valued, "The Quotable Gardener" is the ideal gift -- an invaluable inspiration during the gardening months, and a treasured companion during the long, desperate winter.

Only one thing is standing between you and a fabulous lawn: It's called Lawn Care For Dummies. If you want a spiffy and well-coifed lawn (and not the overgrown, unruly one that people comment on when they pass by your house), you'll find everything you need to know to help you make your lawn the most dazzling spectacle on the block.

Let authors Lance Walheim and the gardening experts at the National Gardening Association treat you and your yard to a megadose of lawn care information. In Lawn Care For Dummies, Walheim and the NGA give you the dirt on all the essentials, including how to

• Design a low-maintenance or a high-maintenance lawn
• Evaluate the pros and cons of planting a lawn from seed or starting one from sod
• Discover how often you need to water your lawn without under-watering it or waterlogging it
• Choose a mower that's right for your grass type
• Deal effectively with wicked weeds and pesky insects
• Create alternative lawns, such as ground cover plants, decks, and patios

In The Cabaret of Plants, Mabey explores the plant species which have challenged our imaginations, awoken our wonder, and upturned our ideas about history, science, beauty and belief. Picked from every walk of life, they encompass crops, weeds, medicines, religious gathering-places and a water lily named after a queen. Beginning with pagan cults and creation myths, the cultural significance of plants has burst upwards, sprouting into forms as diverse as the panacea (the cure-all plant ginseng, a single root of which can cost up to $10,000), Newton's apple, the African 'vegetable elephant' or boabab - and the mystical, night-flowering Amazonian cactus, the moonflower. Ranging widely across science, art and cultural history, poetry and personal experience, Mabey puts plants centre stage, and reveals a true botanical cabaret, a world of tricksters, shape-shifters and inspired problem-solvers, as well as an enthralled audience of romantics, eccentric amateur scientists and transgressive artists. The Cabaret of Plants celebrates the idea that plants are not simply 'the furniture of the planet', but vital, inventive, individual beings worthy of respect - and that to understand this may be the best way of preserving life together on Earth.

What could be better than watching the natural world out your window or on your television? Going out and experiencing it firsthand. In these fifty essays, acclaimed nature and science writer Sy Montgomery takes her readers on a season-by-season tour of the wilderness that is often as close as the backyard. Sy invites -- almost dares -- readers to follow her and form hands-on relationships with the plants, animals, birds, and even the insects that share space with people. These essays, most of which originally appeared in Sy's Boston Globe column Nature Journal, are by turns enlightening, entertaining, sometimes amusing, and always absorbing and informative. Filled with natural history and lore, the essays urge readers to appreciate what they find around them.

This title offers essential gardening skills and tasks, and a guide to 3000 plants, with more than 1900 photographs and illustrations. It includes step-by-step techniques on everything from planning and design to planting, propagation, care and cultivation through each season. It contains advice on choosing the best plants for all types of garden, with entries arranged alphabetically within plant categories for quick and easy reference. It includes information on caring for trees, shrubs, climbers, bulbs, annuals and perennials, growing vegetables, herbs and fruit, greenhouse gardening, and improving your lawn. It contains descriptions and essential cultivation information for over 3000 common garden plants. It is an essential box set for new gardeners and those who want to extend their gardening expertise. Whether you are an experienced gardener or a complete beginner, these two authoritative reference books contain everything you need to know about planning, planting and maintaining your garden, and choosing the best plants to suit your location. "The Visual Encyclopedia of Garden Techniques" includes all the essential gardening skills, such as improving your soil and planting flowers, shrubs and trees. "The Visual Encyclopedia of Garden Plants" is the perfect companion for selecting the best plants to create a beautiful and uniquely personal garden. With practical advice and over 1900 photographs, these informative books are indispensable for any gardener.